The Why

We at Four Branches Press exist as an independent press dedicated to helping return poetry to a place of prominence in the lives of people, even those who are not poets.

We recall a time when quality poetry found space in virtually all newspapers and magazines, and was read, talked about, cut out, tucked into wallets and pockets, sent to friends and loved ones. Poets were guests on popular talk shows. Poetry mattered to the majority, not just to the few.

What has happened?

We have heard for three decades the cry (from poets) that the public no longer reads, or that the average person lacks the depth to understand the poetry being written.

We reject that conceit, and compare it to the chair-builder who, after building a chair few can sit on, blames the backsides of his customers.

We posit that poetry has ceased to care about communicating with people outside of literary circles.

Poetry that speaks only to poets is an incestuous, sterile beast.

We have watched this shift and bemoaned it because of its deleterious effect on the place poetry has in the lives of people. Poetry doesn't matter except as it relates to people, changes them, enriches them.

Overall, there has been a movement in poetic aesthetics that has strived to pare poetry down to a form of verbal architecture that is inconsistent with the richness of life and language. The farther poetry has drifted from the language and the linguistic structure of the people it purports to represent, the fewer have been those who care about it. This is a terrible thing, and if we as poets are furthering this in the name of novelty or verbal architecture or a desire to be published, we need to revisit the point of it all or simply stop writing.

None of this is intended to exclude any literary forms from the wide expanse of poetry. Rather, we seek to reclaim language the recent aethetics have rejected: full sentences, punctuation, narrative, clarity, articles, gerunds: the rhythms and parcels of natural speech.

The emphasis on "word-unit" in modern poetic aesthetics has swung to an extreme. The writer, according to this aesthetic, must pare the poem to spareness. Many poets and critics operate according to this aesthetic and we accept that some poets may find their natural voices in such a setting. With great skill, such an aesthetic can still communicate clearly to readers-with-intent.

But there is a spell woven by poetry that often requires more space than the word-unit allows. If the general populace has rejected poetry as a viable expression/reflection of life as it is lived by the regular person, we believe that rejection gained full head when the word-unit mentality set in among poets.

We do not speak in wordsalad. We speak (more or less) in a flow of complete thoughts, clearly linked and related, if not syntactically, then conceptually. And we do that with common words adapted to context and audience. None of this implies that poets should not strive to say the old thing in a new way. But it is more critical to say the old thing with a new slant than to find convoluted structures and strange wordplay: no one but poets reads this stuff. Back to incest we go.

When poetry's emphasis became "edginess" (which we believe coincides historically with the absurd notion that sincerity is uncool) all weaving of spells for the average reader went out the window. And we believe with great conviction that if poetry is to regain ground it must recall itself to be the language of magic. Not just for those of us who are well-read, well-versed, but for anyone who reads with intent. The language is rich! We needn't stretch it to its limits of absurdity to be original. It provides for writers, within the limits of common words, commonly used, a wealth, a virtually bottomless cup, of opportunities to beautifully convey new insights, new perspectives, to leave the heart floating, or pierced.

There are times when the overall poem, through its layers of rhythm and meaning and wandering concepts, weaves the spell that cannot be analyzed at the level of the word-unit, and that spell may need a large sea indeed, cluttered with -ing's and articles that serve only to shape the wave, carry the reader to the crest.

This is not wordiness (a ridiculous term, really, when applied to poetry.)

These are the ideas with which we begin, fearful of the inevitable pummeling that is to come.

Importantly, the impetus for this concept came about upon hearing poets speaking wistfully of their former voices, voices that were richer, fuller, more accessible. When asked why they changed, some could answer, some could not. Strikingly, those who could answer did so by stating a variation of this sad idea: "I changed so I could get published."

We know there are exceptions, but we address ourselves to the broth, the overall atmosphere shaping not only poets, but their readers and critics, shaping the very definition of poetry itself. It is that broth, we suspect, that took many poets from their richer voices and led them to an unnatural spareness. We are not surprised that many now want to return.

It is our intent to offer one place to which they can.